Your first designer

Your first designer should have a lot of qualities. But most importantly, they must believe in your startup’s vision right from day 0. You don’t want a designer who’s joining you only for building up their portfolio. You’ll find a lot of designers who are transactional. And, a lot of designers whose primary focus stops at, “I am here at an early stage startup to build a kickass portfolio for myself.”

There’s nothing wrong in that mentality. Designers (and everyone out there) should be selfish. But, that’s not a mentality that’ll work at early stage startups. That’s not a mentality that’ll fit well for founders who want to setup a great design function at their startups and see great design in their products.

As founders, you need designers who fundamentally believe in your vision.

For example, if your vision as an ed-tech startup is to coach 10 Million students, your first designer should believe and internalise that vision. One of their big reasons to join your startup should be that they also want to see their designs help coach 10 Million students.

Once they internalise this vision, they will primarily focus on that. They’ll not just chase the perfect design processes, extensive 6 month long user research sessions, a meticulously crafted design system on day 1, etc., for their shiny portfolios. They’ll focus solely on hustling to build things that’ll coach 10 Million students out there.

And, I strongly think this isn’t just for your first designer. Your first hire at every function should have this quality. Your HR, your PM, your Ops specialist, your Sales executive, and every first employee should have this quality. Simply put, your “Firsts” should be different. They should fundamentally believe in your vision.

I am over simplifying things here, but you get the drift.

If you’re an early stage founder and are looking for your first designer, I’d love to help you with that and in setting up your design function. Hit me up at me@chettyarun.com

✌🏻 Peace out!

Disclaimer: Hey! These are my unfiltered thoughts, kind of like a stream of consciousness. I’ll be honest, I haven’t done extensive research. So, take all the information with a grain of salt. It’s mostly based on my personal observations and perspectives.

Hope you enjoyed the read! If you have feedback or a different perspective, I’d love to know. Catch me on Twitter or mail me at me@chettyarun.com Thanks!